What does race have to do with the death penalty in Texas?
More than 72 percent of those on death row in Texas are people of color. Studies show race plays a role in the state's harshest punishment. Full Story
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Hannah Wiley is the border reporting fellow for The Texas Tribune. She graduated with her MSJ from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in June 2018, where she spent nine months in Chicago in the investigative reporting track and three months in the D.C. political reporting program. She was a research assistant at The Chicago Tribune and a World intern at USA TODAY before joining The Texas Tribune. Although a self-proclaimed foreign policy nerd, Hannah has also reported on education in Chicago and in Puerto Rico and has worked directly with immigrant and refugee populations both as a teacher and a journalist.
Latest Contributions
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![The execution chamber seen from one of two witness viewing rooms at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Huntsville Unit.]()
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Texas court throws out 1987 murder conviction; declares North Texas man "actually innocent"
The Court of Criminal Appeals said Steven Mark Chaney's conviction was based partly on faulty science. Full Story
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A Texas school contractor says she lost her job because she won't promise not to boycott Israel. Now she's suing.
The school severed its contract with the speech pathologist because of state law banning Texas government contracts with companies that boycott Israel. Full Story
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![The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announces the filing of a lawsuit against Texas' "No Boycott of Israel" law, on Monday, Dec. 17, 2018 in Austin. Speaking is plaintiff Bahia Amawi, a teacher in the Pflugerville Independent School District who was forced to sign a pledge against her beliefs in order to get paid. She later quit her job as a speech therapist in the district. In the back are attorney Gadier Abbas and CAIR director Mira Sheikh.]()
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Convicted murderer Alvin Braziel executed for killing Mesquite man and raping his wife
Braziel's attorneys failed to secure a delay in the execution after last-minute argument that prosecutorial conduct tainted his trail. He was the 13th and final inmate Texas put to death this year. Full Story
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![Alvin Braziel was sentenced to death for the 1993 murder of Doug and Lora White on a Mesquite jogging trail.]()
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Report highlights the trauma that thousands of Texas families have experienced with incarceration
Researchers reviewed prison data and surveyed more than 4,000 adults this summer to determine how incarceration affects family members of prisoners. Full Story
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![Jaden opens his gift bag from his father Jason Jackson. Volunteers collect and organize age appropriate items that fathers then put into gift bags the day before the Day with Dad.]()
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Texas executes Joseph Garcia, one of the "Texas Seven" prison escapees
Garcia was executed Tuesday night. He was the fourth of the "Texas Seven" inmates executed after the group escaped the Connally Unit in 2000 and killed Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery. Full Story
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![Joseph Garcia was sentenced to death of the murder of Irving Police officer Aubrey Hawkins on Dec. 24, 2000.]()
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Trump administration looks to Texas as it pushes a criminal justice reform bill
Prominent Texans in Washington are pushing for a criminal justice reform bill, and lawmakers are looking to the state as an example of how reform works. Full Story
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![U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable discussion with state leaders (including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton) on prison reform in Bedminster, New Jersey on August 9, 2018.]()
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Dallas grand jury indicts Amber Guyger, fired officer who killed Botham Jean in alleged apartment mixup
The grand jury decided to indict Guyger on a murder charge for the Sept. 6 killing of Jean, an unarmed black man. Full Story
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![Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, left, shot and killed Botham Shem Jean in his apartment.]()
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Report: Houston-based pharmacy is supplier of state's execution drugs
Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy has been selling Texas drugs for lethal injections for three and a half years, according to a BuzzFeed News report. Full Story
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Advocates say the timing is right for independent oversight of Texas prisons
A bill aiming to detach the ombudsman from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice died in 2017. But news from the past year makes advocates hopeful that 2019 will be different. Full Story
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Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules against death row inmate Jeff Wood
The court denied relief on Wednesday to Wood, who never killed anyone, granting the state the opportunity to set another execution date for the 1996 murder of a store clerk in Kerrville. Full Story
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![Texas death row inmate, Jeffrey Lee Wood.]()
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Texas executes Robert Moreno Ramos, amid pleas for case review
Lawyers for Ramos had argued that he wasn’t aware of his rights under an international treaty, and therefore didn't receive proper legal counsel during his trial and sentencing. Full Story
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![Mexican national Robert Ramos is scheduled to be executed on Nov. 14, 2018, for the Feb. 1992 murder of his wife and their two children.]()
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In Texas, the "rainbow wave" outpaces the blue one
Fourteen of 35 LGBTQ candidates won their races Tuesday night, and activists say the 2018 election will carve a path for a future "rainbow wave" in Texas. Full Story
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![Left to right: State Reps.-elect Erin Zwiener, HD-45, Jessica González, HD-104, and Julie Johnson, HD-115.]()
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Justice Department will send election monitors to 3 Texas counties for Election Day
The monitors will be in Harris, Tarrant and Waller counties. Full Story
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![A long line of voters wait to cast their ballots at the Wonderland of the Americas Mall in San Antonio late Friday afternoon, Nov. 2, the last day of early voting.]()
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Undocumented immigrants say a better life – not children's citizenship – the main reason they come to Texas
While President Trump vows to end citizenship rights for children born to non-U.S. citizens through an executive order, political analysts and immigrants themselves say that wouldn't deter illegal immigration. Full Story
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Ted Cruz targets conservative Hispanics in deep-blue Rio Grande Valley
The Rio Grande Valley has long been a Democratic stronghold. But U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to tap into an often overlooked conservative base in this stretch of the border in his re-election bid against U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke. Full Story
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![U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz speaks to a crowd during a campaign stop in Laredo on Monday, Oct. 9, 2018.]()
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After ICE detained this migrant in Texas, her C-section scar ripped open and she was denied surgery for 4 months
A woman from Honduras crossed the Rio Grande and asked for asylum. For months, she said doctors in a detention center gave her only ibuprofen and antibiotics for a persistent open wound. Full Story
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Study says family separations are causing a mental health crisis in the Rio Grande Valley
Around 1,800 children in the Valley had a parent deported by immigration authorities in 2017, which causes what mental health experts say is long-lasting trauma and "toxic stress." Full Story
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Hundreds of migrant kids haven't been reunited with their parents. What's taking so long?
Some 350 children separated from their migrant parents this summer have yet to be reunified, despite a court-ordered July 26 deadline to do it and endless hours of pro bono legal aid. About half of those kids are on track for reunification. Full Story
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![Santiago Martinez Alvarez joins his family in protesting family-separation policies during a vigil outside the Ursula Border Patrol Processing Center in McAllen, Texas on June 17, 2018.]()
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Critics say new barriers on border bridge are meant to deter asylum-seekers
Agents on the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge now occupy a large physical barrier at the bridge's halfway point to manage the "influx of Central Americans seeking asylum." Full Story
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![Immigration attorney Jodi Goodwin, center, talks to Nicaraguan asylum seekers while they wait for CBP agents to bring a wheelchair for one of them, on the U.S. side of the international bridge in Hidalgo on Sept. 15, 2018.]()
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